ByJessica Parillo |August 18, 2017

Since its establishment in 2002, over 1,100 veterans have sought the services of Homes for the Brave, a not-for-profit organization that provides care to American veterans in need. The shelter, located in Bridgeport, has been recognized for its programs. It offers both temporary and permanent housing, as well as vocational training and life skills coaching. Its mission to enable veterans to have a “productive and meaningful life” post-service. The work done by Homes for the Brave contributes to a nationwide and state effort to address the issue of veteran displacement. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines chronic homelessness as “an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.” A large population of veterans meet these qualifications.

ByConnor Madison |August 18, 2017

Where schools lack structured theater and arts departments, there are programs available to children to study drama and visual arts in depth. The Shubert Theatre in New Haven has a summer program for kids interested in taking drama arts and design classes. Kelly Wuzzardo, the director for education and outreach for the Shubert Theatre, helps run the summer camp. She says even though kids perform better academically when they are involved in arts programs, the arts are under-appreciated. A U.S. Department of Education report from 2009 notes that elementary school theater programs decreased between 2000, when about 20 percent of schools offered the subject, and 2010, when only 4 percent of the schools said they offered instruction in drama.

ByAmanda Gardner |August 18, 2017

A study by psychology majors at Ramapo College of New Jersey shows that hazing not only physically scars people, but it also has a long-lasting impact on a student’s self-esteem, mental health and school life. Hazing in college Greek Life and other organizations has gone up dramatically in the past ten years as reported by, insidehazing.com, a website created by Dr. Susan Lipkins, a hazing expert who has been working in the field for 25 years. Not only is hazing in general on the rise, but the brutal actions that take place while hazing have become more severe. Some students have died, and other cases have involved the overconsumption of alcohol, extreme public or mental humiliation, sleep deprivation, verbal abuse, being forced to perform sexual acts or being forced to wear embarrassing clothing, according to a national study done on hazing by Associate Professor Elizabeth J. Allen and Associate Professor Mary Madden of the University of Maine. The effects of hazing include psychological trauma, sleeping problems, flashbacks, eating disorders, anxiety, avoidance, depression and intense feelings, according to insidehazing.com.

ByKate Ariano |August 18, 2017

Doing her part in the community to better the lives of the Hartford homeless is a passion of Jodyann Fuller, a sophomore at Achievement First Hartford Academy. The nonprofit group she’s part of, Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), assists in food pantries around the city, says the 15-year-old aspiring pediatrician. When she is not at home cleaning and cooking or watching makeup tutorials on YouTube, Jodyann is on the streets, talking to the less fortunate of Connecticut’s capital city and discussing plausible solutions to the homelessness crisis. OPP works to get urban youth involved in their economy and community, according to its website. “I really like helping people, especially who are in need,” Jodyann says.

ByAlexandra Sprouls |August 18, 2017

Drug and liquor arrests at Yale University and Harvard University have decreased since 2013. At Yale, 38 students were arrested for drug abuse violations and 20 students were arrested for liquor law violations in 2013, compared to 13 drug arrests and 3 liquor law violations in 2015, the Yale Police Department reported. Similarly, Harvard University reported 11 drug arrests in 2013 and 9 in 2015. Liquor law violations dropped from 7 in 2013 to 1 in 2015. Marisol Dahl, a 2015 Yale graduate, said she witnessed drinking and drug violations almost daily on the campus in New Haven.

ByCarolina Ríos |August 18, 2017

Between 2009 and 2012, the rates of obesity dropped 3.7 percentage points among children aged 2 to 5 and 0.3 percentage points among children aged 6 to 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. During the presidency of Barack Obama, campaigns such as the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act and the Let’s Move campaign were born. Their purpose was to create healthy lunches for kids in school and to reduce childhood obesity. Such initiatives are in doubt now that President Donald J. Trump has taken office. In his first major act, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue began scaling back federal healthy eating requirements in school lunches that had been championed by former First Lady Michelle Obama.

ByJurea McIntosh |August 18, 2017

In Connecticut, teenage dating violence has declined slightly, but on average 1,300 teens say they have experienced some form of violence each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2013, 1,436 or 11.1 percent of teenagers surveyed said that they experienced sexual dating violence compared to 1,328 or 8.0 percent of teenagers in 2015. For physical dating violence the numbers fell from 1,466 teens or 9.0 percent in 2013 to 1,276 teens or 11.5 percent in 2015. This mirrors a national trend where the number of teens experiencing physical or sexual dating violence has dropped slightly. Nationally, about 10,000 teens reported experiencing physical and sexual dating violence yearly, reports show.

ByRachel Robinson |August 18, 2017

Richmond’s students are lagging behind Virginia’s average on tests and graduation rates, but the city is trying to lessen the gap. According to the KIDS COUNT database, in the 2016-2017 school year 14.6 percent of students in Virginia were below the expected level for the PALS-K, which determines if a student’s readiness for kindergarten. In Richmond, 25 percent were below the expected level on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screen. In the same year, 80.2 percent of high school students graduated within four years while 91.3 percent of Virginia’s students did the same. The KIDS COUNT database also shows that in the 2015-2016 school year, Virginia had a passing rate of 76 percent on the third grade Reading SOL, or Standards of Learning, a mandatory test going over the material students have learned throughout the year.

BySarah Lukowski |August 18, 2017

Women had just 37 percent of the bylines at the 10 most circulated U.S. newspapers in 2015, while just 32 percent of those delivering the evening news at the major TV networks that year were women, according to a major study. Although 51 percent of the country’s population is female and, according to Nielsen Scarborough, women make up 54 percent of media consumers, gender inequality exists across the media landscape, said the Women’s Media Center in its 2015 report. This includes online and in wire services. “We can do better. And we must,” said Julie Burton, president of the women’s center, in comments on the group’s website.

BySofia Rositani |August 18, 2017

The body of John Back, 67, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, spent 8 months in the chief state medical examiner’s morgue, even though he had a girlfriend and family who could have taken his remains. Back’s situation, as recounted by the Connecticut Post, is not unique. There are an estimated 40,000 unclaimed bodies nationally stored in morgues, sixwise.com reports. It is a situation that coroners and others fear could become worse because of the opioid epidemic and financial constraints on states trying to deal with growing numbers of unclaimed bodies. States ranging from Connecticut to California have been trying to find ways to deal with the financial and practical burdens of disposing of the unclaimed deceased residents, some of whom are homeless without anyone to take their remains or family members who don’t want to pay for them to be buried or cremated.

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A new federal law will allow hundreds of Connecticut veterans with “bad paper” discharges to be eligible for long-term mental health care for the first time, and thus reduce their suicide risk. (more…)

Four nurses, all of them affiliated with a Derby pain clinic, were responsible for nearly all of the state’s 2014 Medicare spending on the powerful opioid painkiller Subsys, which is at the center of a kickback probe.